Vihreä Ruusu - Controlling Multi-Vendor Tickets

Vihreä Ruusu

Service Governance	Service Level	Processes and Practices
Mode of Operation	Vendor Relations	Availability

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Matti Grönroos CV

Matti Grönroos

Controlling Multi-Vendor Tickets

The tickets for the Incident Management and Service Request Management practices may be transferred from one team to another one for several times during their lifecycle. Such a hopping is normal, because there may be several teams involved.

However, ticket hopping shall be monitored and controlled. An extra effort is needed if the tickets hop across companies.

How much time is given to each body to handle the ticket is a generally unsolved question. If the target time-to-resolve for the ticket is say eight hours, every team must complete their work much faster.

In simple cases, the entire ticket is solved or fulfilled within one team, perhaps immediately.

However, it is usual for the ticket to go through several teams, either for analysis or for actions, or both. When there are many such transitions, "hops", the risk increases that the ticket will not be resolved within the target time.

Especially in a multi-supplier environment, it is appropriate to write the service contracts in such a way that the possibility of hopping is considered. In its simplest terms, this means that service providers' delivery time targets must be substantially shorter than what the service recipients will get. For example, if the total target is eight hours in the chart above, no service provider, of course, can be given eight hours. It must also be noted that transferring the ticket from one service provider to another takes time for technical reasons. The ticket system integration seldom works on a real-time basis.

There is no universal solution for this. Ultimately, it is a matter of statistical risk analysis to assess how many tickets miss their deadline because the service providers need more time than their quota is.

The traditional approach is simple: Every service provider takes responsibility for their own work only. The time for such service contracts just seems to be over. Customers want to have the entire value chain to commit to the quality targets.

It is essential to nominate someone to carry the responsibility for the workflow of the "Ticket Factory": To monitor the tickets, to detect the ping-pong games, and to take corrective actions before it is too late. The ITIL term for such a role is Incident Manager. The Service Desk or the SIAM Operator are natural choices to take on such a responsibility.